This disclosure relates generally to online systems, and more specifically to allowing a user of a first online system to create content items for presentation in a second online system without having an account in the second online system.
An online system allows its users to connect and communicate with other online system users. Users create profiles on an online system that are tied to their identities and include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Because of the popularity of online systems and the significant amount of user-specific information maintained by online systems, an online system provides an ideal forum for allowing users to share content by creating content items for presentation to additional online system users. For example, users may share photos or videos they have uploaded by creating content items that include the photos or videos that are presented to additional users.
Conventionally, content items generated by online systems include information describing the users creating the content items based on user identifying information maintained by the online systems that is stored in association with the users' accounts. For example, a content item created by a user after logging into their user account includes the user's name and profile picture, as well as other content associated with the user maintained by the online system that is stored in association with the user's profile or account in the online system. However, users are limited to creating content items for presentation to users on the same online system on which they have an account. For example, since the user in the previous example has an account maintained by the online system, the online system was able to generate the content item using the user identifying information and other content associated with the user maintained by the online system, but would have been unable to do so if the user did not have a user account on the online system. Requiring users to create an account on each of multiple online systems in order to share content on the online systems is inconvenient and may discourage users from sharing content on multiple online systems. Once users have created accounts on multiple online systems, they also may be required to manage their accounts in order to share content (e.g., by updating them and uploading content to be shared). Moreover, assessing the performance of each content item requires an assessment to be made for each online system on which the content item was created.